We need your help to improve investigator welfare and outcomes for victim-survivors in rape and serious sexual offence (RASSO) investigations

Policing and academia are working together to transform policing’s response to RASSO investigations through Operation Soteria. Forces across England and Wales (and beyond) are participating in this important transformational change project.

As part of this work, we have recently  deployed our highly successful Learning & Wellbeing Survey  to understand your perspectives on a range of issues related to your force’s current learning and development (L&D) approaches to equipping you with the knowledge and skills to undertake or support RASSO investigations, as well as seeking to understand aspects of your wellbeing and the processes in place to support it.

Why we need your contribution

We invite primary (response, SOLO/SOIT) and secondary (CID, specialist RASSO teams etc) investigators to contribute to this important work by completing our survey.  Our survey data from previous rounds of research has already identified links between these factors.  We are seeing that they affect your ability to do your job to the best of your ability, and to deliver effective outcomes for victim/survivors and the wider CJS, as well as how they influence your welfare, and we need your help to understand what we are seeing better.

In addition, your participation will provide real world evidence to inform your force’s change planning and their successful implementation of Operation Soteria We believe it is really important to have the voices of practitioners, like you, heard in this work. This important project is seeking to improve RASSO investigations for you as police practitioners and for victims/survivors, so thank you in advance for your contribution to this goal.

The anonymous survey will be running until 15 April 2024.  It will take approximately 20 minutes to complete and your contributions will help us make a difference.

What do I need to do

Many forces have already signed up to participate in the survey. If your force is one of those you should receive communications from your force's Soteria or RASSO leads with more information and the invitation to participate. Some of you may have completed our survey previously; in which case we'd love to hear from you again so that we can see if anything has changed for you or in your force since you last contributed.

For more information

In force:  Speak to your Soteria or RASSO leads

Research Team:  Please contact Arun Sondhi and Sarah Armstrong-Hallam via oupc@open.ac.uk